Environmental hazards, commotion and conflict between staff members, irate personnel, health and safety issues and IT security incidents, all expose an organization’s human resources, assets and business processes to danger. Leveraging an always-on preparedness model that guards business against impact and can share information through readily available emergency communication channels becomes a crucial game-changer.
Staying Safe During Environmental Hazards
Catastrophic calamities caused financial losses worth nearly $70 billion during the first six months this year. Individuals are advised to protect themselves in shelter zones during environmental hazards as a preventive measure. However, during an emergency crisis, many individuals misconstrue these instructions to take cover in a shelter zone as an order to not move away from their current location, which could only expose them to more harm.
Shelter Zones
The use of shelter zones becomes necessary during natural calamities or crisis situations caused intentionally or unintentionally by human intervention, which in many cases could expose individuals to toxic substances, for instance, during a chemical spill, or put their life in jeopardy, such as during an active shooter incident.
Usage of these shelter zones would need to be further adapted depending on the type of disaster.
Regardless of the type of crisis at hand, individuals must be strongly advised against stepping outside their building spaces. All employees must be thoroughly instructed on shelter zone best practices.
Individuals must gather at the bottom-most story of the building during a natural or man-made calamity, even make use of the basement, if possible. They must gather in the topmost story during biological or chemical accidents, preferably in a compartment that has no windows. People must stock up on essential supplies and stay indoors during pandemics.
Outline a step-by-step procedure list for using the shelter zone that’s located in the facility during a crisis such as turning off all electrical appliances and equipment, fitting windows with reinforcements, getting in touch with emergency services, establishing routes for employees stationed in different parts of the building to reach the shelter zone, and so on. An alternate location for shelter would be necessary if the office location is a mobile facility.
Recommendations for Workplace Shelter Zones
- Make sure that individuals who are not part of the organization such as customers and guests remain indoors while at the office facility and that they are thoroughly briefed on all the dos and don’ts for shelter zone usage
- Keep a headcount of individuals within the premises at all times and make sure it tallies with the number of people in the shelter zone during the emergency. Ensure that shelter zone entry points can be fastened with locks and other mechanisms
- Mobile facilities are not very reliable during certain environmental hazards such as hurricanes or tornadoes and alternate shelter facilities must be provisioned
- Maintain a checklist of all electrical appliances and equipment in the building to be turned off during an emergency
- All occupants in the shelter zones must duly inform their emergency contacts of their whereabouts
- Stock up on emergency provisions in the shelter zone well in advance, including landline connections and battery operated radios for essential communications
It also helps to stay tuned in to all official sources of information such as the local police, fire, emergency departments and so on, for the latest updates. Location specific emergency alerts are also available on the net.
Repeated trial runs of using the shelter facilities during simulated crisis situations help in fine tuning the minor specifics of plan execution and enhancing its effectiveness.
When Employees are Held Captive
There is a great deal of uncertainly involved in situations where employees or other individuals such as customers are held captive by criminal groups as they threaten their health, safety and lives. Although an organization’s response options can be severely constricted in such situations, emergency teams still need to put together a plan that can be executed if and when these incidents occur.
Businesses typically procrastinate preparing for situations involving abductors as they are relatively rare occurrences compared to other natural or man-made disasters. Preventive measures can also lead to a lot of unnecessary speculation among employees about their safety.
However, extensive training and preparation can go a long way in ensuring that employees are capable of responding to hostage situations where the margin for error is minimal.
Preparing for Incidents Where Employees are Held Captive
Responding to situations where employees are held hostage requires a high degree of precision and coordinated efforts among individuals.
- Comply with the abductors, giving them no reason whatsoever to get aggressive or violent, which could be detrimental to the hostages’ safety and well being
- Individuals held hostage should interact among themselves as little as possible. Even the slightest show of emotion could provoke unnecessary aggression or violence from the captors. It’s important to stay as inconspicuous as possible
- Captivity can stretch for long periods of time. So it is important for hostages to keep their wits about themselves and have the resolve to play the waiting game until a solution can be arrived at
- Avoid responding to the situation even if there is the slightest amount of risk involved
- Hostages shouldn’t be too eager to celebrate early, even when their captors decide to release them or when rescue teams reach the scene of action
- Try and stay as still and calm as possible. Avoid all rash and hasty behavior
How to Deal with Volatile Behavior from Employees with Grievances
There have been incidents where working professionals have lost their lives at the hands of unhappy colleagues and today’s workforce is fairly acquainted with the possibility of such occurrences.
Preparing for workplace violence is often wrongly interpreted by the staff as suspicion on the part of the management or as a lack of confidence with regards to employee behavior. However, these initiatives should be projected as a moral responsibility to ensure that employees operate in a safe and secure workplace.
Detecting Hostile Staff Members
Reactive or inflammatory actions that can quickly spiral out of control need to be detected well in advance and nipped in the bud. Explicit signs of violence, acknowledging the possession of firearms, using it to threaten fellow employees, and similar incidents should be noted and acted upon immediately. The management should also keep a close watch on individuals with criminal antecedents.
Responding to Hostile Staff Members
Dealing with employees who have been identified as troublemakers should be prioritized and the individual should be handled with a lot of tact so that the situation is resolved effectively without hurting sentiments.
Taking Decisive Action Without Complicating the Situation
The management should call aside the individual and hear them out regarding all their grievances. It should also be made abundantly clear that inappropriate conduct at the workplace won’t be tolerated. The concerned individual should also be made aware of the consequences should such issues occur again.
Putting the Incident on Record
The incident, one on one discussions with the employee regarding the incident, and the final verdict on the matter should be put on file for reference. These case histories provide more in-depth perspectives on individual behavior especially when having to deal with other incidents that occur in the future.
Ending the Individual’s Employment
In extreme conditions, termination of employment becomes necessary and the individual’s exit formalities are fast tracked so that the incident is brought to a close as quickly as possible.
Maintaining Confidentiality
Such incidents must be handled as discretely as possible to avoid unnecessary speculation among other employees. Information must be revealed only on a need to know basis.
Spotting these incidents as early as possible and dealing with them immediately in a decisive manner are crucial factors as such issues can quickly lead to a lot of complications that in many cases can even hamper the company’s business interests.
Accidental & Deliberate Cybercrimes
Cybersecurity threats are typically concerned with network vulnerabilities that hackers look to exploit and gain access to confidential files and classified information. Many such incidents have led to high profile conspiracies on various occasions and have been covered extensively in the press.
Cyber threats are the biggest risk enterprises face today in terms of impact. The cost of dealing with a cybersecurity incident could vary depending on the nature of data that is being stolen and in many cases could even imply expenses in the range of millions of dollars.
The business world is also witnessing a steady surge in cyberattacks that make use of stolen identities of users and devices. End users are deceived into making fraudulent payments through email phishing and social engineering. Such incidents have collectively caused a financial impact of many billions of dollars over the last four to five years. These incidents can also occur due to negligence, technical issues or lack of attention to detail.
Factors leading to unauthorized access to high priority data can be both internal as well as external. More and more organizations are having to make considerable investments in security to prevent insider threats while external attacks such as ransomware can be equally disruptive.
Cyberthreats Requiring Human Intervention
Many of these issues arise due to factors such as inefficient monitoring and a lack of stringent protocols. These include errors caused by administrators, operators and even programmers.
Classified information such as a customer’s payment method details can also be leaked out deliberately by employees within the organization to external entities for financial gain.
Cyberthreats Arising from Technical Issues
Systems that haven’t been rigorously tested are often riddled with bugs and issues that leave them highly susceptible to cyber attacks. These issues also include poorly configured or installed software which in turn could lead to security issues.
These technical issues could also be deliberately sneaked into the system in the form of bugs, DDoS attacks, harmful software that tamper with data or gain access to highly confidential information and so on.
Besides implementing security infrastructures that protect their systems from these threats, organizations also need to constantly update these mechanisms to guard against new and emerging threats. Businesses must go beyond investing in plans that are effective only at a functional level and develop resilience capabilities that can forecast future disruptions and respond accordingly without compromising on customer concerns or compliance requirements.
Conclusion
Businesses operating today are exposed to a considerable amount of risk that can directly impact the company’s bottom line or the health and safety of individuals. Developing a business continuity plan requires a lot of planning, a careful consideration of all the factors involved, an integrated approach to responding to different threats, rigorous testing procedures and extensive training programs, all competitively packaged into an end-to-end solution that can overcome any business disruption while protecting the commercial interests of the organization as well as the health and safety of individuals.
Stay In Business provides the most comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery solution packages available in the industry for any type of organization that cover preliminary preparations, responses during a disruption and post disruption measures.
